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Though it was not yet officially called the Museum School, the Arkansas Arts Center’s first day of community art classes started on June 3, 1968.

To call it the first day of community art classes is a bit of a misnomer. When the institution opened in May 1963, there were community art classes. But once the degree-granting program launched in autumn 1964, the consistent, regular offering of those classes went away.

With the January 1968 announcement that the degree-granting program would end by May 31, 1968, plans were underway to bring back community arts classes. Monday, June 3, 1968, started that program. Since that day, the Arkansas Arts Center has consistently offered arts classes to the community.

The session which began on June 3, 1968, was six weeks in length. There were fourteen faculty members teaching 48 different classes for both adults and children. The registration ranged from $10 to $22, depending on the course. Among the course topics were painting, drawing, print-making, sculpture, crafts, design, children’s and teenage theatre, and art appreciation. The faculty came from local artists.

Plans were already underway to offer twelve week sessions in the autumn of 1968 and spring of 1969 in a variety of art and dramatic disciplines.

Today there are 48 faculty in the Museum School with seven additional staff members. There are approximately 50 classes for adults, over a dozen additional workshops for adults, and nearly twenty art classes for youth. This does not include the theatre classes, or the annual Junior Arts Academy and Summer Theatre Academy.

It is a very strong logo. While I understand the limitations to use (being so strongly vertical instead of square or horizontal), I very much like when I come across items with this version of an AAC logo.